The I Statement

Hello, my name is Molly Irizarry and I have had a bad habit of lily padding. 

“Molly, WTF is lily padding?”

Well, I’m SO happy you asked!

Do you know a person who comes to you every month and says a new thing they’re into and then the next month it changes?

Maybe this month they’re into video games and next month it’s swiss cheese and maybe the month after that it’s an obsession with JLO. _{(Ok this is a little dramatic but I’m a dramatic Puerto-Rican so you get the picture.)}

I call that whole event “lily-padding”, jumping from thing to thing.

In recent years, I have become more and more aware of my tendency to always be BUSY.

I fill my schedule with things I want to do and the interest passes through me as fast as diarrhea.

If you talk to any of my friends, my friends will tell you that legit, on my route to developing my personal brand, I have switched focus like every month.

“Maybe I’ll offer coaching.”

“I should write a book.”

“I want to focus on lifestyle medicine!”

“I want to go into wellness… no, spirituality… no, SPIRITUAL WELLNESS!”

“Maybe I should start a food service company.”

“Maybe I should open an art gallery.”

“I want to be a screenwriter!”

These are all VERY real examples that I have thought and publicly shared. ^{Embarrassment is my middle name.}

Why- WHY did I do this?

Well for one… I’m a Virgo and I enjoy learning new skills. There is legitimate JOY in learning for me and once I decide on a skill, I hone it in like no tomorrow and become engrossed by it.

Or so… I SHOULD!

Instead I constantly hop from one thing to another before I even get the chance to try it out and learn it in depth.

As I have become older, wiser, and started developing a relationship with my gray hairs that I am naming… I have realized that my wide variety of interests and learning isn’t the problem.

My lack of focus IS.

My lack of focus, when I dig own into it, is a trauma response (honestly though what isn’t?)

But in all seriousness, I can’t sit down and grind something out till I’m an expert at it and truly enjoy the rewards of that if I am constantly on the move to something else.

It’s kinda like sabotage if you think about it.

But why? Why do I sabotage?

Well.. Let’s flip the ball to your court and maybe it’ll make sense.

Think of a thing you stop yourself from doing.

Is it opening your own business?

Is it posting on social media?

Is it talking to new people?

The reason this is freaky-deaky to your nervous system is because it is something new.

So naturally you resist it, you run from it to avoid any chance of failing at it or accepting the risk with putting yourself out there!

Comfort is enticing. It’s like cooking with butter — Everyone loves butter, but the shit is bad for you.

So I realized that in trying to introduce all these new identities into my life, my nervous system reacted the way it normally has with all signs of threat, no matter how microscopic they are: by taking me away from that onto something else.

I know. Shocking that my nervous system is working to protect me, I know! ^{It’s only had to do it for like 32 years.}

And when I started looking deeper at it, I realized that I lily pad in EVERYTHING.

I have moved every year for like 5 years.

I have changed jobs every 1-2 years.

I have changed relationships every 1-2 years.

This is my nervous system’s way of feeling safe: If I stay on the move like a freaking mammoth, the ice won’t get me.

IN REALITY, with being on the move so much, the only thing that isn’t getting me is my mail.

Again, it’s SABOTAGE.

It’s my nervous system trying to protect me: yes.

But it is inconvenient, expensive, and incongruent with the life I actually want.

I want to create a personal brand, which means sticking with the things that make me, ME and becoming experts in them.

So in realizing this… this major lily padding that has been happening in my life, I have DECIDED to no longer lily pad and stay right where I am.

I have decided to hone into the population I want to help most, which I discovered is women who want to heal from their history of childhood emotional neglect and help them gain clarity on their life direction using astrology and other spiritual tools.

Which means, I have to get really, REALLY good at astrology.

So my first attempt at Anti-lily-padding is studying astrology, which I have been doing well. :)

My second goal is to stay put and not move for a minimum of 2 years (I JUST moved so…. this comes at the right time).

I want to build a relationship to my new city, make friends and really get used to taking risks.

And my THIRD attempt at anti-lily-padding is getting back into honing in my art ability. I used to draw and it’s been a while (go figure, I quit that shit too 🙄.) I want to get back into that and explore that some more.

I hope all this has given you some food for thought, into perhaps where you mentally, emotionally, or physically lily-pad.

Where do you sabotage yourself?

What do you get from lily-padding in your own life?

And MOST IMPORTANTLY- Can you make the conscious choice to change those tendencies?